


Not Quite According To Plan

by olderbynow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Because That’s A Thing We’re Doing Now, Canon Compliant, Coin Toss Plot, Cracky Fluff That Takes A Detour Through Angstville, F/M, Not Exactly Sad Jack Not Exactly Actually Wanking, Which Was NOT My Original Intention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olderbynow/pseuds/olderbynow
Summary: Phryne's chasing a train robber; Jack's not entirely sure what he's chasing, but it's probably either his sanity or Phryne. Set just beforeUnnatural Habits.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



> I'm sorry, okay. I meant to get you something really nice for your birthday and instead you're getting this. Just like Jack I'm not really sure what 'this' is, but - not quite like Jack - I'm genuinely sorry. 
> 
> Also, you should partly blame whopooh for this. She even almost deserves it.

There’s just no bloody way.

None.

Jack has been telling himself that at least a hundred times in the last hour - which is roughly as many times as he usually repeats the mantra that pleasuring himself while thinking about her is a Bad Idea and will one day get him into Serious Trouble. So it’s a lot.

Except, as he stands there in his shower, or lays there in his bed, or sits there in his office (It just happened once, honestly. Okay, twice, leave him alone, some of her dresses are _very_ skimpy and you’d think she’d be able to afford more fabric than that) it’s very difficult to convince himself that Serious Trouble would be in any way bad at all. In fact it can sound downright appealing if he imagines her looking at him in that way she sometimes does as she says it. So probably telling himself _this_ isn’t happening is as pointless as telling himself he should be thinking about something other than the curl of her lips or the outline of her hips or the sound of her voice when she says his name.

Which is pretty damn pointless, really.

So obviously this is happening.

His packing is erratic at best. At worst it looks like he robbed a bank and needs to get out of town in a hurry.

Although, if bank robbers were this scattered, they’d probably be a lot easier to catch, if he’s honest with himself. Which is not a thing he intends to be very much for the next twentyfour hours or so.

Nothing good can possibly come of that.

Into his bag goes a third tie, spare braces, a shirt he hasn’t worn in over a year because the collar has somehow gone lopsided. A pair of socks (woolen, not at all appropriate for the season) land on his bed next to the case and he picks them up to pack them properly, then realises exactly how much he won’t need them and throws them in the general direction of the open dresser drawer he just got them out of.

They land on the floor with a muted thud, and he stands for a moment watching them, his arms hanging limply at his sides. Then he takes a deep breath, pretending he’s not doing it to steady himself, and picks them up and puts them back in the drawer, laying them neatly next to the other pairs of woolen socks he won’t need.

He feels utterly ridiculous. There’s absolutely no reason why he should be this jittery.

There’s a very real chance he could be dead by this time tomorrow, of course, which seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation for his nervousness, but the truth is (oh, for Christ’s sake, can he not just leave the bloody truth alone for a _day_?!) it’s more the fact that he might _not_ die that has him so on edge.

Because if he won’t be dying, just what does he think that he'll be doing?

He swallows and goes to pick out another undershirt. On his way, he passes the small box that holds his cufflinks, and for reasons he couldn’t explain if he tried, he picks up a spare pair and packs those as well.

Temporary insanity. That will be his defence. Yes. He has gone mad, taken leave of his senses.

No-one who saw his bedroom right now would doubt it.

He hears the sound of a car pulling up outside his house, the engine roaring unnecessarily loudly. Has it always done that, or does it just feel louder because he’s worried his neighbours might hear and think… Well, whatever the hell they might think, which isn’t likely to be anything particularly sordid. That’s just him. Resigning himself to his fate, he pushes down on his random collection of belongings in order to close the bag, and then he makes his way through the house, reaching the front door and opening it just in time to see Phryne Fisher with her hand poised to knock, frozen mid-movement.

“You’re all ready to go,” she says, staring at him with eyes that are wide and surprised, her hand falling to her side. “I was sure I’d have to forcibly drag you out of there.”

She cranes her neck, trying to look into his home, and he pulls the door almost shut behind him, one hand gripping the handle tightly, just in case she tries to push her way in. “By all means then, Miss Fisher,” he says drily, taking half a step backwards as if he’s preparing to go back inside.

She grabs his arm, almost making him drop his bag (How is it so heavy? What exactly did he put in there? Bricks?). “As much fun as that sounds this is rather time sensitive, so some other night.”

To his ears she manages to sound both business-like and as if “some other night” somehow involves unpacking _him_.

And it’s absolutely interpretations like this one that are why he’ll one day be in that Serious Trouble.

Still not letting go of him, she turns and heads back to her car, all but dragging him along with her, only releasing him to get to the other side of the car.

He drops his bag behind the passenger seat and then looks at her over the roof of the Hispano. “Y’know, it might be better if I drive,” he suggests innocently. “Very old-fashioned out there, people might not take kindly to a female driver.”

She smirks. “Nice try, Inspector. Now get in the car.”

He sighs and gets in, exuding annoyed resignation. (Which is a much better thing to be exuding than nervous with a side of ‘haven’t gotten laid since John Allan was Premier’ so he does what he can to lay it on thick.) “Just respect the speed limit, please, Miss Fisher.”

“What would be the fun in that, Jack?” she asks, looking at him sideways as she starts the car with a roar and accelerates to a speed that is well beyond what’s permitted.

“You won’t be having much fun in gaol, and if you’re caught driving like this you _will_ be arrested,” he points out. She wouldn’t, of course, and they both know it.

“Not when I’m driving around with a detective inspector as a passenger, surely,” she says jokingly.

“Oh, they’d just arrest me too,” he tells her.

“Well, in that case,” she says, her foot pushing the throttle down even further as she takes a corner at breakneck speed. “I’m sure we could have some fun in that cell together.”

He grabs the dashboard with one hand, more for dramatic effect than because he’s particularly worried for his safety. “We won’t be having any fun at all if we’re dead,” he mutters.

She laughs but bizarrely it seems to work, because she actually slows down. He only hopes she didn’t take that as a promise of fun to be had. Or perhaps he hopes she did, he’s not entirely sure. 

Serious Trouble, Robinson. This is how you get there.

“You do realise this plan is completely mad and there’s no way it won’t end terribly?” he asks after a few minutes. He has only the vaguest idea what her plan even is, but he’s fairly certain it will turn out to be something needlessly risky.

“Yes, you made your opinion quite clear on the telephone,” she says flatly. “But the thing is, Jack.” She pauses and he turns his head to look at her. “You still came along.”

There’s really no arguing with that, but he’d be willing to give it a go.

“Against my better judgement.” He feels slightly like a petulant child saying it, and also rather like he doth protest too much.

“Why? Are you worried you’ll actually enjoy yourself?”

That is, of course, exactly what he’s worried about. That and being murdered in his sleep by a ruthless, entirely too trigger-happy train robber, who’s bound to realise that they’re not there for whatever flimsy excuse for a reason she’ll have cooked up. “Please just focus on driving, Miss Fisher.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see her smiling slightly, and out of the corner of hers she would be able to see him smiling back. Against his better judgement.

To Jack’s relief - and slight disappointment, either because a hypothetical night in a cell could be ‘fun’ or because it would get him out of this harebrained scheme - they make it to Frankston without interference by local police, and Phryne drives around aimlessly for a few minutes, clearly looking for something.

“Do you not know where we’re going?” he asks incredulously. Surely being a magnet for trouble should mean that she’d just be automatically pulled to their destination.

“I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it,” she replies, craning her neck slightly as if that’ll help her recognise the building she’s looking for.

He shakes his head and leans back in his seat.

Ten minutes later they pass a restaurant he’s convinced they’ve driven by at least twice already, now going at a pace that even Jack considers bordering on too slow. “Just ask someone for directions,” he suggests. 

“I’ll know it when I see it,” she insists.

“But how are you ever going to see it if you keep driving around in circles?”

She glares at him and takes the same left turn she took the last two times they drove down this street.

They’re about to overtake (Well, they're working towards catching up with) a man walking his dog. “Excuse me, sir,” Jack calls out and the man stops, turning to look at them.

Her hand utterly forced, Phryne stops the car completely. 

“We’re looking for the Bay View Hotel,” Jack says to the stranger, ignoring the way she huffs behind him. “Could you possibly point us in the right direction?”

The man looks at them both. “It’s up that way,” he says, pointing to where they’d have ended up if she had taken a right turn after the restaurant instead of her usual left. “Where you get a view of the bay.”

Jack smiles, trying to look more grateful than amused at the not-too-subtle sarcasm. 

“Thank you ever so much,” Phryne says, leaning over to look out the window, keeping her balance with the aid of a hand planted firmly on Jack’s upper thigh, her shoulder resting against his. He can feel the outline of her breast against his upper arm. He does what he can to sit very, very still. 

“You folks here on your honeymoon?” the man asks, either nosiness or polite interest, Jack isn’t really sure because all he can focus on is the pattern Miss Fisher is drawing with her thumb, which is taking her within very close range of a part of his anatomy that would be perfectly happy with her getting closer still and which seems to be doing its best to make that proximity happen. 

“Yes, thank you,” he says quickly, wondering if it might not be a good idea to jump out of the car and walk the rest of the way. 

“Did you just tell that man we were newlyweds?” she asks him in a whisper, turning her head to look at Jack instead of the stranger who’s walking on slowly but still watching them. She’s so close he can feel her warm breath on his face as she speaks. And her hand is still there although there’s less weight on it now. Basically, there’s no way she’s touching him for any other reason than to touch him. Or possibly because she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it, but it seems unlikely. She’s looking entirely too smug for that.

“What?” Jack asks. “No.” The argument could probably be made that he did, now that he thinks about it.

“I think you did,” she says, her red lips curling up in a smile.

Against his better judgement (perhaps the truth is he in fact has no better judgement; he only has the terrible kind that lands him in Phryne Fisher’s car with her half in his lap) he smiles back. It’s impossible not to.

Which is why the Serious Trouble is feeling so inevitable.

He thinks he might kiss her; for a moment she looks like she might kiss him. He can’t think of a single reason why they shouldn’t, and then a dog barks loudly, and he can think of about five reasons all at once.

That dog and its owner being two very good ones. “I think he said that way, Miss Fisher,” Jack says, pointing.

She scoots back into her own seat still smiling, and then - mercifully - drives on without another word.

As it turns out she does know the place when she sees it. Jack reckons he would’ve known it as well, what with the massive sign reading “Bay View Hotel” that has been put up on the roof of the white two-storey building and all.

She parks haphazardly on the side of building, and he grabs both their bags and lets her walk ahead of him inside. The fact that her bag is much lighter than his is hardly surprising considering his own method of packing, but still faintly humiliating. Mainly because she’ll turn out to have brought six perfectly coordinated outfits, whereas he will have brought… cufflinks and three or four books on botany, he’s suddenly remembering.

The reception area of the hotel looks inconspicuous enough, no sign at all that this place is run by a man with several lives on his conscience to be found in the sand and burgundy colour scheme or the dark wooden furniture. Nor is there any proof of the wealth he has acquired robbing trains in the way everything looks threadbare and just shy of shabby.

“Jones, we have a reservation,” Miss Fisher says to the young woman who appears from behind a curtain and comes to stand behind a counter, looking at them with what Jack can only describe as a sincere lack of interest. 

The girl turns a page in the ledger of reservations, searching for the name.

“It’s right there,” Miss Fisher says, pointing at it helpfully once she’s done reading the whole page upside down. Behind her Jack rolls his eyes.

The young woman looks at the name as if this is the first time anyone has asked her to read cursive and then from Phryne to Jack and back again. “One room, three nights?” she says at last.

“That’s right,” Miss Fisher confirms and Jack opens his mouth to object and then closes it again. She said _one_ night, there’s no way he would’ve agreed to three. For one thing he has to be back in Melbourne in two days, he has a meeting with the chief commissioner.

(He told himself - and her - there was no way he’d agree to one, so this new objection would’ve been feeble at best. And possibly it’d interfere with whatever cover story she has laid out for them, which is the main reason he’s not saying anything. Definitely.)

“Have you worked here long?” Miss Fisher asks conversationally as the young woman makes some notes in the ledger, presumably about which room they’ll be given.

“Few months.”

“And what happened to the girl who worked here before you?” It’s not the most subtle of interviewing techniques, but this woman frankly looks like they could wave the ‘Wanted’ poster Miss Fisher tore from the wall at City South this morning under her nose and she still wouldn’t realise she was being questioned. And if she did, she probably wouldn’t care.

“Moved away.”

“Oh,” Miss Fisher sounds intrigued and faintly vindictive, like a cat that has its prey cornered. Jack makes a mental note to stay away from any and all corners. “Just up and left, did she?”

The woman shrugs and turns around to find a key for them in a cabinet on the wall behind her. “Upstairs, end of the hall.”

“Thank you very much, Miss…?” Miss Fisher says, pausing expectantly.

The woman just points at the stairs. “It’s there.”

Jack stifles a grin. “Excellent work, Miss Fisher,” he says once they’re at a safe distance. “You’ll have her telling us everything she knows in no time.”

“I imagine that wouldn’t take very long,” she retorts, locating the door to their room and turning the key in the lock before turning around with a look on her face that is intensely troubling, mainly in that it usually means trouble of the kind that Jack keeps telling himself he needs to avoid, although he’s running out of reasons why. “You know…” she says slowly, reaching out a hand to grip the lapel of his coat, her knuckles brushing against his chest as she tugs on the fabric gently.

Holding a bag in each hand he is utterly defenceless against the attack. His feet, traitors that they are, take a step closer to her.

“Since we’re newlyweds, I do think it’s customary for you to carry me over the threshold,” she says at last, looking up at him through thick lashes, her tongue darting out to lick the corner of her mouth.

He swallows. “I believe that tradition only applies at home, Miss Fisher, not in hotels.”

“Holiday cottages?” she asks, her voice entirely too innocent.

He grins slightly. “Definitely not.”

“Are you saying you didn’t?” she asks, and he’s not entirely sure if her surprise is genuine or teasing.

He gives her look that’s meant to suggest that she’s being utterly ridiculous and doesn’t reply. Which she is, of course. As always. But he also did, of course. At home. Because it is tradition and there was a time when Jack was a very traditional man, he thinks to himself wistfully. (The kind of traditional man who wouldn’t dream of checking into seaside hotels with women he wasn’t married to. Now he wouldn’t only dream of doing it, he has actually gone and done it.)

She’s still looking at him expectantly, ready to jump into his arms if he gives any indication at all that he might be inclined to catch her.

At this precise moment in time, he’s not entirely sure he wouldn’t just let her drop to the floor, honour and gentlemanly knee-jerk reactions be damned.

“No,” he says flatly but firmly. A blanket denial that’s meant to cover any and all mad suggestions it might occur to her to make before morning.

She rolls her eyes and walks into the room ahead of him. “You know, being married to you isn’t as much fun as I had expected,” she says wistfully.

“I’m sure Rosie would agree with you there,” he replies drily, following her inside.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's pretend this'll be four chapters. At the rate it's going it might turn into five. Phryne likes to keep her mysteries convoluted and her detective inspectors on the brink of madness, after all.

She looks around the hotel room, her expression decidedly underwhelmed as she takes in the battered old wardrobe and not-quite-matching vanity. At least the bed is quite large, which means Jack for one can forgive the frankly hideous curtains not quite covering the East-facing window and the paint peeling off the walls.

“That window looks rather small,” she says thoughtfully.

His eyes still on the blissfully large bed (only one doona, but the weather is warm, he’ll be fine with just a blanket. Also, he’ll absolutely be sleeping on the floor, the size of the bed is not really relevant), he doesn’t quite hear her at first. “What’s that?”

“Do you think you’d be able to climb through it?”

He gapes at her.

She looks back at him appraisingly, clearly mentally measuring him for possible emergency escapes. “I suppose you’ll just have to, if it comes to that.”

“I am not crawling out that window, Miss Fisher,” he tells her in no uncertain terms. He’s not. (If he angles himself the right way he should be able to make it; then it’s just the drop to the ground he’ll have to worry about.)

“Well, you probably won’t have to,” she says dismissively, which isn’t reassuring him at all. 

“What exactly are you intending to do, Miss Fisher?” he asks, not quite sure he wants to know the answer. Perhaps it’s better to be surprised?

She reaches for her bag and he hands it to her, her fingers unzipping it before it has even landed on the bed. After a few seconds of rummaging, she pulls out the Wanted poster he told her in no uncertain terms not to tear down even as he could hear the sound of paper breaking and then, soon after, a neatly folded page of newspaper. (He had _just_ put the thing up, and really it’d be nice if just once she’d respect the work he does. He respects hers, after all, and he doesn’t even do it grudgingly anymore.)

“Tell me that’s not the same man,” she says, handing both of them to him.

“That’s not the same man,” he says, not even looking at the newspaper. 

“Jack.” She looks at him expectantly, rather like a teacher waiting for him to hand in his homework. On the whole, Jack was a fairly conscientious pupil, mostly more interested in learning than in making trouble. 

He unfolds the newspaper page. It’s an article on city planning, a new post office being built next year at what the reporter considers an outrageous cost to the public. The accompanying photograph is of a heavyset postmaster drinking champagne, clearly at some sort of celebration. “Definitely not the same man.”

“Turn it over.”

The other side is mainly shipping news, this boat arriving, that one departing, the cost of the fare to Europe at varying degrees of comfort. And at the bottom is an advertisement for an hotel in Frankston, a photograph of its proprietor standing in front of the building. On the roof a large sign announces that this is the _Bay View Hotel_ and under the photograph is a small text, singing the praises of the place to a degree that frankly Jack doesn’t think is entirely justified now that he has seen it with his own eyes.

The man is tall and gangly, wearing an old-fashioned suit, and his face is half-obscured by a hat and a massive moustache.

This could be absolutely anyone. Including, unfortunately, Willard Grimes, who recently shot his way to the top of Victoria’s Most Wanted list after killing three people - one of them a female passenger suspected of working with him - during his latest train robbery. Hence the hanging of Wanted posters across Victoria police stations.

Two arguments spring to mind almost immediately, and he’s not entirely sure which one will be the least futile. He mentally tosses a coin as she looks at him expectantly, apparently assuming he’ll spring into action and arrest the hotel owner immediately. “The odds that this is the same man are astronomical,” he begins when it comes up tails.

She pulls a face that tells him he should’ve gone with heads. “What does that even mean, ‘astronomical’? And it’s not about odds, Jack, it’s about being right.”

That’s true, of course, but the odds (he smirks to himself, feeling slightly like he just got away with he’s not even sure what) are that she won’t be. “If you’re so sure, you should’ve just contacted local police, I’m sure they’d be able to handle it.”

Why didn’t he open with this? This is a much better argument than “I think you might be wrong.” When has telling her she was wrong ever worked? Odds are the answer to that question is ‘never’.

“The man is wanted for six robberies and three murders, Jack. Do you honestly think some local bumpkin would be able to handle this? He’s been living here right under their noses for _years_.”

He looks at her, fully intending for his expression to convey offence at the suggestion that his fellow police officers aren’t up to scratch, but it might lack conviction, just slightly, and it’s clear that she isn’t buying it. And why would she? They’ve displayed their incompetence often enough in her company, Sergeant Ford in Maiden Creek being a fairly recent example. (He’s still not quite over the fact that he actually managed to swallow that would’ve-been-wine-if-she-had-any-patience. Sometimes manners are a terrible thing to have, and not just because they stop you from staring when she obviously doesn’t mind you doing it.)

But at least she’s polite enough to appreciate the effort. “We can just… investigate, and if something’s amiss you’re perfectly welcome to alert Sergeant Willis,” she offers.

Sergeant Willis? So she looked the man up ahead of time? Jack wonders if she read his file (doesn’t even bother to question how she got her hands on it because it’s undoubtedly something he’s better off not knowing) and found him either very ugly or very married and that’s why she decided not to come alone. And then he quickly dismisses the thought, because that is definitely a path that leads straight to trouble and frustration. “And what exactly does ‘investigate’ entail, Miss Fisher?” he asks skeptically. Which is not the same thing as agreeing, just for the record.

“Well, first we should probably get a proper look at the man,” she says practically.

He nods. That seems reasonable enough. And if he doesn’t force her hand or tempt her to do anything foolish by trying to resist, they can probably manage it unscathed. “So you want to go sit in reception and wait for him to appear?”

“No,” she says, as if that’s the most ridiculous idea she ever heard. Which it may very well be, the sentence contained the word ‘wait’, after all. Then, before he can do anything to stop her (and he can tell that this is going to be something he ought to be stopping), she pulls out her dagger, throws the doona aside and cuts a long slit down the mattress of the bed. “There. That’s something the owner ought to be taking care of, isn’t it?”

“I should arrest _you_ for vandalism,” he says.

“Would that involve handcuffs, Inspector? Because then I suggest you wait until we get another room with a bed that’s still in one piece,” she says suggestively. 

He should cuff her to the bed, he thinks. Cuff her to it and leave.

Except he didn’t pack his handcuffs, did he? He attempts a mental overview of the contents of his bag. No, he did not, he’s almost certain. He did, however, bring a total of four ties (assuming he’d be willing to sacrifice the one he’s currently wearing to the cause), so he could tie her rather thoroughly to the bed. The idea leaves a mental image he ought to dispel, at least until they’re safely back in Melbourne and he’s alone.

She hides her dagger again, and he tries not to look (no, really!) as she pulls up her skirt to push it back into her garter, and then she heads for the door. “Coming?” Without waiting for a reply from him, she leaves the room and heads down the hallway towards the stairs.

Jack tilts his head back to look at the ceiling, not sure what answers he’s expecting to find there but still slightly disappointed that there aren’t any, and then he follows her.

“--and I’d like to speak with the owner,” he hears her saying, her voice suggesting that she isn’t willing to negotiate.

“No.” The young woman they’ve already met once seems to feel pretty much the same way about negotiations, and Jack smiles to himself as he makes his way quietly downstairs. The extent to which he enjoys watching Phryne Fisher arguing with people says things about him he might’ve preferred never to know. 

“That bed is not fit to be slept in, it’s simply unacceptable,” Miss Fisher persists, going for rude now instead of merely demanding. Desperate times, Jack thinks to himself.

He turns the corner and the woman behind the counter looks at him as if she suspects him of destroying the bed. He’d defend himself, but that’d hardly be helpful, so instead he just smiles apologetically and leans against the wall, perfectly happy to let Miss Fisher handle this one on her own. 

The woman blinks slowly, and Jack wonders if she’s mentally coin-tossing as well, trying to decide if she can be bothered to deal with this at all, but then she turns around and gets another key out of the cabinet. “Second door on the right,” she says, not even looking at them, pulling out the ledger with her free hand.

“Thank you,” Miss Fisher says, very clearly not meaning it. She stomps back up the stairs, clearly aiming for just graceful, rather than graceful in defeat.

(He knows better than to suggest that that’s what that was.

Well, he almost does.)

“I hope you don’t plan to wreck every room in the place, Miss Fisher. If that is your intention, may I request that you leave just one for us to actually sleep in?”

“Don’t be absurd, Jack,” she says dismissively, surveying their new room. The furniture is slightly different, the curtains made from a different fabric, but overall the feeling that this place has seen better days is the same. Then she turns around and grins wickedly at him. “We’ll be perfectly fine sleeping in the car. We might have to get close, though.”

He looks at her expectantly, not believing for a moment that she’d be willing to spend a night in her car unless she absolutely had to. And if she stops cutting up mattresses she won’t have to.

“A broken pipe, perhaps?” she muses, and he’s not entirely sure she’s joking.

“No.”

She rolls her eyes. “Really, you’re no fun at all.”

“You should’ve thought of that before dragging me along.”

“Well, I had hoped once we got out of Melbourne you’d… relax a little.”

“Whatever gave you that impression, Miss Fisher?”

She smiles, that teasing smile he imagines on her face as she tells him to think about something other than her fan dance as he strokes himself, and he swallows, hoping she won’t notice his discomfort. “Did you bring your bathing suit, by any chance?”

He might’ve done, he honestly isn’t sure.

“No.”

“Shame.” She doesn’t look particularly disappointed. She looks like she’s considering suggesting a swim all the same. Presumably naked.

“I didn’t realise we were here to amuse ourselves, I thought we were catching a killer,” he says, trying to bring her back on track. And trying to get himself off the track of imagining her imagining him without clothes on. Is there perhaps a room with a desk for him to sit behind in this hotel?

“Who said we can’t do both?” she asks, reasonably enough. She does very rarely let murder investigations get in the way of having fun.

He nods, conceding the point.

“We could get something to eat?” she suggests, entirely too innocently. “Perhaps question some unsuspecting locals about what Mr. Grimes gets up to in his spare time.”

“And do you think one of them will say ‘oh, I believe he spends it robbing trains and murdering people’?”

Clearly that remark doesn’t deserve a reply, because she merely rolls her eyes and starts digging through her bag again, taking out one of those carefully coordinated outfits he knew she had brought. But then, of course, she had Dot to take care of her packing, no wonder everything is so immaculate. (She holds up a dress made from a shiny blue fabric that glitters in the light. It seems to Jack like there ought to be more of it. God, how he hopes there isn’t.)

“I realise we’re posing as a married couple, Jack, but I feel like I ought to give you fair warning. In order to get into this--” She waves the dress at him, then looks down to indicate what she’s wearing now. “--I’ll have to get out of this.”

His eyes travel slowly up and down her body as he considers his options. He could stay and she would undoubtedly let him; her warning was meant only for him and his sense of propriety.

She looks back at him, her gaze steady as she waits for him to come to some sort of conclusion. He would find the fact that she knows he’s struggling humiliating were it not for the fact that her pleasure in it seems to somehow give him pleasure as well. (Either that or it’s the mental image of her dress sliding off her shoulders and falling to the floor in a pool of green.)

It’s a strange dance, one he won’t even pretend to himself that he understands, all he knows is he isn’t quite ready for it to be over yet.

He points to the window, in the direction of a small group of trees they could see when they arrived. “I will be in the small copse over there, searching for loot,” he says jokingly.

She smiles, overcoming her disappointment with an ease that is very nearly insulting. “I won’t be long.”

Jack isn’t under any kind of illusions about the colour of Miss Fisher’s lips being natural, nor that getting into a dress like that is anywhere near as quick as he imagines getting out of it would be… 

(No, Jack. Don’t even think about it. Train robbers and dead conductors, Robinson. Murder and mayhem, and a very real chance you’ve just let yourself be driven into the middle of a hornet’s nest unarmed.

Because she’s stark-raving mad to think that this hotel owner is in fact Willard Grimes but she also has an annoying ability to end up smack in the middle of danger, and now she has somehow managed to drag him along with her. Which would be a flattering thought if he were under any kind of illusions that she did it because she needs his help for anything, but he’s very well aware that he’s here more for her amusement than her safety.)

… But he has barely managed half a round in the clump of trees - is that a mound of freshly turned dirt over there? - before she turns up, a coat on to cover her dress and something sparkly holding her hair in place on one side.

“It’s a lovely evening, what do you say we walk?” she asks once she has realised he’s not going to compliment her on her speedy wardrobe change. 

“I don’t know where we’re going, so I guess that’s up to you.”

“And you don’t even care?” She sounds skeptic, clearly unsure if it’s safe to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.

“I find it’s easier not to ask, as it won’t make a difference anyway,” he tells her drily.

“Huh.” Surprise turns to delight and then she links her arm through his, gently tugging him in the direction of the road. “I hope this easygoing attitude will be a permanent thing when we return to Melbourne.”

“I think it’s safe to say that’s unlikely,” he warns, feeling foolish to a degree he feels his age and experience doesn’t quite allow as he looks down at her gloved hand resting on his forearm. “And were you not suggesting just moments ago that getting out of Melbourne should’ve helped me ‘relax a little’?”

“I suppose it would get boring in the long run anyway,” she says, clearly finding some comfort in that. “If you were _too_ relaxed.”

“A horrifying prospect.” He’s joking, of course, but it’s true. The idea that she’ll one day grow bored with him is terrifying. They work well together, and he knows she knows he lets her get away with things he shouldn’t in the course of their investigations; but there are other policemen and if she were so inclined, he could be replaced with relative ease.

It is - more than anything else - what helps him leave at the end of the night, what stops him leaning in to brush his lips against hers, what keeps the fantasies as merely fantasies: That they might come true, but then she’ll move on.

“Is it so terrible that I want to enjoy myself?” she asks, sounding more serious than he would have expected, and certainly more serious than what feels entirely safe. At this pace they might end up having an actual conversation, which would lead to a whole other type of Serious Trouble and he would undoubtedly end up revealing more than he ought to do.

Possibly it’d end in _her_ revealing more as well, in a very different manner, and yet again he has to remind himself that it’s a Very Bad Idea to let his mind wander into that territory when she is this close. 

He senses her shifting and turns his head to find her looking at him expectantly, her lips slightly parted, looking soft and red and…

He clears his throat. “No. It just seems that, very often, your enjoyment spells trouble for me.” He smiles because, very often, he doesn’t exactly mind the kind of trouble she brings, as long as she’s the one bringing it.

“That’s because you’re not participating properly,” she says, and there’s no mistaking the meaning from her tone.

Serious Trouble straight ahead, Robinson.

But the kind he’ll be reliving over and over in the privacy of his bedroom, he has no doubt - and no will-power, once he’s on his own.

“I think I’m participating more than enough,” he says. And then, not really meaning to, he lets slip: “I’m here, aren’t I?”

She smiles, cat that ate the canary whole. “Yes. You are.”

Why did he say that? Of all the stupid things he could’ve said. Could they go back to talking about why she makes the choices she does? Perhaps they could talk about the war for a bit. Anything to get her to forget the fact that he basically just admitted that he came here hoping, expecting, whatever, to _enjoy_ himself.

Why would he admit it to her when he hasn’t even admitted it to himself? Because he didn’t and he isn’t.

Absolutely not, it’s not going to happen, even if he has to chase down this train robber himself to get to go back to Melbourne where it’s safe because there are… Why is Melbourne any safer, again? 

Oh, right. They’re not sharing a bedroom there. 

Perhaps when she goes to bed tonight he can do a tour of the house to look for Willard Grimes. It’ll get him out of the whole testing his willpower to the point of breaking thing _and_ get him back to Melbourne sooner. Or killed.

But definitely one of those.

“Did you bring a spare gun by any chance?”

“What?” Whatever she was expecting him to say next, this clearly wasn’t it. Which he can’t rightly blame her for. “No, just the one, I’m afraid,” she says, patting her handbag. Then she grins wickedly. “But you know where I keep my dagger, help yourself at any time.”

Fed up, both with this game of innuendo (he’s not fed up, he’ll never have had enough of this game, which is obviously why he needs to stop playing it) and with his own wandering thoughts, he looks down to where he knows the dagger is nestled - with a ridiculous disregard for her own safety - inside her garter, his eyes travelling slowly down her body, lingering there for a moment before travelling back up again. “Don’t make any offers you might regret.”

Their eyes meet and he can feel his heart beating an uneven tattoo as her lips part slightly in a smile. They’ve stopped walking and are now facing each other. He assumes she stopped first and his feet just did the same, refusing to let his body move on when it could be staying put and touching her.

He’s almost certain he wasn’t always like this. He used to have a will of his own; it’s possible sometimes he even still does.

But this is not one of those times, is a fact that’s becoming extremely clear to him as he finds himself completely incapable of breaking eye contact, except every once in a heartbeat to look down at her lips before finding her eyes again. 

Her arm, no longer linked through his, is resting lightly on his forearm, her fingers wrapped loosely around his bicep, while his hands, clearly acting without instructions from his brain, just like the rest of his body, have somehow wrapped themselves around her waist on either side.

This is exactly the kind of moment he should’ve stayed home to avoid. This moment right here, exactly now. There have been dozens of moments before, of course, but this is going to be the one he’ll be reminding himself of when he’s eighty as _the moment_ when he fucked up properly and lost any semblance of control over his emotions and it all went straight to hell from there. Because all those other moments he managed to resist, to go home or make some quip about their investigation, but he can’t go home from here and he is all out of witty remarks.

Since it all seems inevitable anyway, Jack supposes there’s no real point in fighting it, and so, licking his lips because she’s done that three or four times now and it seems only polite, he leans in. She smiles, her eyelids fluttering as her eyes close. He keeps his eyes open, wanting to see everything, so he knows exactly what to punish himself with in future when she has moved on to someone else.

The thought that this is a terrible idea and he should Not Do It runs through his head seventeen times and still his lips are nearly half an inch from hers. He gives up on seeing, closes his eyes and for a moment time stands still.


End file.
